Getting the Most from Qlik Alerting

A: Yes, if you would like to get an alert when a specific app has been reloaded successfully or otherwise has failed, then you can use “System alerts”

Q: From which Qliksense version onwards alerts are available?

A: According to the help page: Minimum recommended version of Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows is February 2019.

Q: How can I get an alert if a QlikView job fails to load, or if an NPrinting job fails to execute?

A: Not possible, for now Qlik Alerting is only available to set it up with Qlik Sense, starting from QS February 2019 .

Q: Hello, I have a questions regarding the conditions. They seemed to only use operators, but can we apply filters or selections to the alert?

A: Yes, you can apply filters and conditions.

Q: In DATA alert, can you edit an ADDED MEASURE?

A: If you mean if you can edit a measure once it has been created, yes you can do it after from the QA web console.

Q: Is it mandatory to have different machines for Qlik Sense and Qlik Alerting?

A: Not mandatory but best practice is to have them in separate machines.

Q: Can you loop through Selections to test condition on each?

A: Yes, using filters and more advanced conditions, you can find some examples in our Help Page.

Q: Since it's included in SaaS, does that mean there's no added cost?

A: Yes, exactly, for Qlik Sense Enterprise SaaS there is no extra cost, but it is only available for SaaS Enterprise, not in Qlik Sense Business.

Q: Can Custom notifications be used to send alerts in another language?

A: Yes, sure, it can be sent in any language as they are custom notification so you only need to put whatever text you like.

Transcript:

Hello everyone and welcome to the June edition of Support Techspert Thursdays. I’m Troy Raney and I’ll be your host for today's session. Today's presentation is “Getting the Most from Qlik Alerting” with Patricia Silva. Patricia why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Yeah, sure. So, hello. My name is Patricia. I’m a Technical Support Engineer based in the Qlik Barcelona office, and I have been working for Qlik since 2019, and my main focus are Qlik Sense, NPrinting and Qlik Alerting.
Okay, and what will we be covering today?
We will go through what Qlik Alerting can do; difference between SaaS and Windows; demo with SaaS; a demo with Qlik Alerting on Windows (on-premise); and troubleshooting tips.
Great! So, for people who are kind of new to the product, can you explain what is Qlik Alerting?
Yeah. So, Qlik Alerting is a separate product that can provide enterprise alerting for your Qlik Sense deployment.
Okay.
It offers capabilities for users to create their own Alerts on the data they have access to in Qlik Sense; so that way, they can easily spot outliers within their data by configuring Alerts. And then when another fire, it can be directly sent to user phones or email; whatever you have configured.
So, how does it work from a high level? I know we're going to get into the demo, but can you show us the workflow? Oh great.
Yeah, sure. So, in terms of workflow, on the left-hand side, we have the enterprise data sources flowing to Qlik Sense application. And in the middle, we have Qlik Alerting. So, it will look into those Qlik applications, master items and measures that are present in in Qlik Sense applications; and it will allow administrators, users from Qlik Alerting to directly create Alerts using the web application. From Qlik Alerting, you can apply conditions and when these conditions are met, then it will directly send to email or to your mobile phone.
Like text messages to mobiles?
Yeah, exactly.
That's really cool. Now you mentioned that it's an additional product. Is it free or is it a feature or an add-on? How does that work?
Yeah. It is a different product. So, it is not free of charge, but you only need to make sure that when you buy this attribute; you need to check that it's indeed added to your Qlik Sense license. So, that way Alerting can check it. But yeah, it is a separate product from Qlik Sense.
So, once you've added the Qlik Alerting tag to the Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows license, what type of Alerting capabilities are available to each access type?
So, from Qlik Sense side, we have Professional, Analyzer, Capacity and no license access. For example, if you have a user that has no license, so here we can see what you were able to do on Qlik Alerting side; so for a professional license, you have all capabilities. This is just at a high level. You can find more information in the help page.
Okay.
So, yeah here's a brief summary.
Okay. I appreciate that we can get more details from the documentation, but that's nice to have that overview. What types of Alerts can Qlik Alerting generate?
You can generate Data Alerts. So, that means it will look into Qlik Sense data application, then filter by dimensions.
Okay.
You can also do System Alerts; which means every time an app reloads, you can choose between: success, failed, abort, system abort or in progress. So, you will receive an email about the status of the task.
Okay. So, like you could have an admin, be aware of when a data update fails?
Yeah, exactly. You can also configure Broadcast Notifications. For example, when your system is going to have maintenance; it's just a reminder of anything that you would like the users to know.
So, with Data Alerts; that first one you mentioned there. I imagine when you're looking at the Sense app and all the data that's available; it could be a little complex. How do those work?
For Data Alerts, we have two ways of distributing. One is Broadcast Alert. So, this alert, what it will do is go to the Qlik Sense application and it will be this user who is the creator will check this value. And if it meets the condition, it will be sent directly to User 1, User 2, User 3, User 4. And on the other hand, we have Managed Share Alerts.
Is that the one that can validate the users through a Section Access table first?
Yeah, exactly. So, it will take into account section access.
Patricia, what's the difference between Qlik Alerting on Windows and Qlik Alerting with Qlik Sense SaaS?
So, yeah. In Qlik Sense SaaS, it is already included. You only need to enable them from here. You have to go to Qlik Sense Management Console (QMC), and you just need to make sure in Settings that you have enabled Data Alerts, here.
Ah, right there.
Yeah, and if you want to distribute those Alerts, not only to this space but also to an email, you need to be sure that you have Email Server configured.
Okay, can you go ahead and show us how to generate Alerts in an app here?
Yes, so once we have enabled this setting, we can just go ahead and right-click on any visualization. So, we can go here: Alerts > create new Alert. So, let's give a name.
Okay.
Yeah, and we just need to select a Measure which is going to be: Sales Total. This is a Master Measure that I’ve just created. You can see here: the Total Value for these measures. Go ahead and click Next. We select a measure which is: Sales Total; and we are going to select Greater Than 25 million.
And does it automatically do that preview?
Yeah. So, we go ahead and click next. And we are going to say when data is refreshed. You can do it daily, weekly or monthly.
Okay.
And that's it.
Alert created. That's nice.
So, we can also go here; and this has been created. You can disable here, edit, …
Great.
So, I will go to Data Load editor to reload again.
So, you're doing a manual reload to kind of trigger that Alert?
Yeah. So, we can see that we have received an info alert here.
Okay. So, pops up there notifications. Did it also send an email?
Yeah. We received here the Alert which has been triggered, because it's above 25 million; and we can click here and…
It takes you right back to the app.
Yeah, exactly.
That's great! You've shown us how Qlik Alerting works on SaaS. It's very user friendly. I understand with Qlik Sense on Windows, there's a button that needs to be installed. Can you show us how that setup looks?
To do that, we need to go to the QMC, because we have an extension. When you set up for the first time; Qlik Alerting, it comes with the installation. So, we just need to go to C-drive, Program Files, Qlik Alerting, and the extension is just here.
So, that's after you download it.
Yeah. So, we just go ahead and go to Extensions…
Import.
So, we just go ahead and Import. We can see it has successfully been imported. So, now we refresh just in case. We go ahead and click Edit Sheet. We go to Custom Object, and it will appear here as Qlik Alerting.
There it is.
So, we just drag and drop. We need to give here the name of our Qlik Alerting Server which is this one. So, we don't need to copy HTTPS because it's already checked here.
Okay. So, that's the separate machine where you have Qlik Alerting installed?
Yeah. Exactly. So, as we can see this is failing. And this is normally because we don't have right certificate installed. We will now install it.
Okay.
So, first thing you need to do is: to go to the QMC. Go to certificates; give a name. Let's say “qlik.serverr.domain.local.” Include separate key; and you export them in PEM format. So, once they are exported in your Qlik Sense machine; you import it to Qlik Alerting machine, which I have already done here.
Okay.
So, when we have that, we need to go to the Certificate Manager.
And we're on the Qlik Alerting machine here, right?
Yeah. Truster Root Certificate Authorities. We go here, and import. So, to be able to see it, we click ‘all files,’ and we select Root PEM.
Okay.
So, we click Yes. Import was successful. So, now on the Qlik Alerting machine, you've imported the certificate from Qlik Sense. So, they should work together now?
Yeah. Now I will refresh. So, there we go. Now we can see the button to Create Alerts.
Wow! Great. Shall we make an alert like we did in SaaS?
I will just do it simple.
Okay.
We won’t filter by object. We will just select this Measure, which is a master measure.
Okay.
Select ‘Geater Than,’ Manual Value. You can do Manual Value, Measure, Previous Scan or Set. Previous Scans: it compares if the data has changed from the last scan value. To select Manual Value, which will be 25 million.
All those zeros.
Yeah, yep.
I saw there you could apply a second condition as well. That's interesting.
Yeah. So, for now we will select Every Time the application reloads. Create Alert. So,once the Alert has been created, you can go to the Detail View.
So, this logs you into the Qlik Alerting console?
Yeah. So, now we can see here the Alert that we have just created, and we can also Edit. So, you can add more conditions if needed in the future.
Okay, and if you made changes here, it would still apply to what you created from the app?
Yes, exactly. So, we can see here that we have selected On Reload; and the distribution, if we select Advanced by default, it's just Broadcast Alert. But if we select Advanced, we can change to Managed or Broadcast, and also select recipients.
And Managed, that was the one that could use Section Access?
Yeah, exactly. That it will take into account Section Access in term of distributing that data.
Okay.
You can also Customize Notification, which we will do next demo.
Oh, nice.
Save.
So, you're gonna go into the QMC and trigger a reload?
Yeah.
I see the reload was successful. And because you've already configured your email server, that triggered this email Alert?
Yeah, exactly. This is the default email but you can receive custom notifications.
Right! Can you show us how to set up Customized Notifications with HTML code?
Yeah. So, to configure Custom Notifications, we have to go to the other we have created before. Click Edit, and we go to Notification; and we will give this a name. And in my case, I have created a simple HTML code which (if you can see it) has kind of variables here.
Can you show us where on Help.Qlik.com we can read more about those types of variables?
So, we have a list here: Dynamic Text Variables. So, I’ve used not all of them, but some of them. So, you can see I have selected Alert Name. We will retrieve here the first name of the user who is going to be distributed; and the Conditions we have used to trigger this alert.
Okay.
I will just copy and paste it here.
Okay.
And I will trigger this time the alert from Qlik Alerting web console. And there it is.
I see it picked up all those variables.
Yeah.
And looks very nice. Okay. Now, I have a question about email and the users that Alerting is accessing. Now, does it get all the users from Qlik Sense, or how does it pull its list of users that it could send notifications to?
Yes. So, Qlik Alerting has this functionality; so you can sync your user who is your Qlik Sense site.
Okay.
And here we can see that this user has Analyzer, Analyzer and Analyzer.
Okay.
And we can also give an email, if it has not been defined in Qlik Sense Side; you can then just go ahead and edit and just change the email.
It's cool you can edit the contact details from the Qlik Alerting side if it's not what you're expecting.
Yeah.
So, I noticed in the URL at the top that Alerting is using port 4552. Is it possible to change the default ports?
If you wish to change these default ports, you have to make these changes in two places. You might wish to use port 80 for HTTP and 443 for HTTPS; which can make it easier for a user.
Okay, and would you say that's kind of best practice to change it to those?
Yeah, exactly.
Can you show us where those locations are that need to be changed?
Yeah. So, we need to change it first in the UI. So, we go to Admin, and Config.
All right.
Then, we change it here so 80 for HTTP and 443 for HTTPS. We click Save. And then we open the Services. And we will stop Qlik Alerting Gateway.
Okay.
Once it is stopped, go to C-drive, Program Files, Qlik Alerting, Config. We open the Default.JSON.
And just in a notepad editor? Okay.
Yeah. And as we can see here in the 5 line, change the HTTP port just as we did in the UI. So, 80 and 443 for HTTPS. We click Save, and then we go back to the Services. And just start Gateway again. So, now if we go back to Qlik Alerting; as you can see, there's no need to add the port every time. So, if we go back to this application, this is going to fail. Because now we have changed the port.
Is it having trouble communicating with Qlik Sense right now?
Yeah. The thing is that now; as we have changed the port, Qlik Alerting is not in that port anymore. So, we can do it directly here. So, we can just say 443; which will fix it.
Yeah, how can we make that a more permanent change, so it applies to all new Alerting buttons as well?
Yeah. So, we can do it from the Dev Hub.
Yeah, what is the Dev Hub?
It's a tool that comes with Qlik where you can edit extensions; also create extension; and create mashups. So, it's basically for developers.
Okay.
And in our case, we need to change an extension. So, we will go here and open a project, because it's an existing project which is called Qlik Alerting. This is the extension that we imported before; and we need to go to the third tab: JS/Definition. And here where it says ‘localhost,’ we will just copy the address of Qlik Alerting with no HTTPS.
Okay.
And Qlik Alerting Port, we will select 443. So, we click ‘Save.’ Go back to the application.
All right. So, now if you were to add it back; it should work, fingers crossed.
So, if we now add this; it will appear, because now we have defined the DNS Name and Default Port.
That's fantastic. So, you've explained that pretty clearly how it works. What if we've gone through all these steps, and we're still seeing an error message? How can people troubleshoot this?
They can check that they are running really in 443; and also check that they have copied this with no HTTPS, because if I go like this. So, we only need to give that name and the port.
Okay, but if people aren't really sure where the problem lies, how can they start troubleshooting?
Yeah. For example, with HTTPS you can also use the developer tools, which are located here on these three dots. Then we go to More Tools, and Developer Tools. You can also press F12. So, in that case, it failed to post because we are doing a Post Request here. So, you can see ERROR NAME NOT RESOLVED. This is because you are using HTTPS, which you already have defined here. If you remove that, this is just adding the same here.
Right. That's a great tip for learning more. So, for example, the error message that we had initially when adding the Alert button. How can we search for more information about that error?
Yeah, exactly. So, then we can go ahead to Google and just say ‘Qlik Alert and could not retrieve,’ which was the error message we were getting. We can open this article; and here we can find more information, detailed information about this error, and what you would see on the console tab.
Yeah. I see that's an article from the Support Knowledge Base that shows why those messages are shown, and how to resolve them. That's really great. Patricia, one of the Alert types that you discussed before in the presentation was System Alerts, like an alert to admins if a reload fails. Could you show us how those are set up?
We can create system Alerts. We go to Alerts here. We have Data. Wow we are going through creating a System Alert. Create New. So, we will Select the Task Manually.
Yeah. These are tasks that exist in Qlik Sense, right?
Yes. So, we will check if this reload fails.
Maybe, we should set it to Success for this demo since we're not expecting it to fail.
Yeah, because we just want to show how to receive and configure System Alerts. So, we click Next. Save.
Okay.
Let's do a reload. So, here we go. It was success.
That's great. And I see there are links to the Sense QMC and the Alerting UI. Now if that were a failure and you wanted to find some more information, where are the log files located?
Yes. So, we have two paths where we can find Qlik Alerting logs. But starting from June 2020 release, we can find more detailed logs in C:, Program Data.
So, there's a log folder there for each Alerting service?
Yes. So, those are the logs. And if I open one, you can see it has a Timestamp, Hostname, Version,… So, we have really detailed information here.
Great! So, these are curated logs that are relatively readable. You mentioned another location?
If you wish to have more information, you can go to Program Files, Qlik Alerting; and for this service, for example, Email Messenger. We have this folder called Daemon. So, we can see this ‘.err’ where we can see errors, but…
Yeah. I see that's just a string of commands with no time stamps or anything.
Yes.
Well, that can be helpful. Hopefully people won't have any issues where they need to go that far, but it's nice to know that the information is there. Are there any other tools for administrators to keep track of all the Alerts that are generated and how they're doing?
Yeah. Qlik Alerting includes a Qlik Sense monitoring app that could help you understand and visualize what is happening within your Qlik Alerting environment.
Okay. How do we set that up?
Yes. First thing we need to do is to create the Qlik Alerting Data Connections. So, to do so, Qlik Alerting includes a BAT file that can help you create and configure these Qlik Alerting data connections.
Oh, that's great! Where do we find that file?
Yeah, we can find it in C:, Program Files, Qlik Alerting, Setup, Monitoring-Connection. And we have these BAT files. So, we just run it. I will run it As Administrator. We give the username of the root admin.
Okay.
And now, if we go to QMC, and we go to Data Connection; we should see something called Alerting: monitor_alerting and monitor_alerting_login.
Oh, that's great that that one batch file created those for you.
Exactly. It is easy. Next thing we need to do is to import the monitoring app.
Okay.
We go to Apps in QMC, and we will import it.
And this app comes with the Qlik Alerting installation?
Yes, from Program Files, Qlik Alerting, Setup, Monitoring Connections; and it's here. So, we open it. It has successfully been imported. So, now we go to the hub. We open that. We just need to change one variable to be able to match or Qlik Alerting server name.
Okay.
So, we need to look for the following variable. It's called: ‘vServer.’ We can select: ‘search in all sections.’ So, first place where we can find this is here. So, we just need to change it too match our Qlik Alerting name.
Okay. So, it's just getting the name of the machine where Qlik Alerting has been installed?
Yeah, exactly. So, we change the port to 443. There's no need to add it here. So, we now click ‘Load Data.’
All right. So, now it's loading all the information about the tasks the Alerting tasks, and Alerts that have been triggered, and created; and making that visible in an application? Cool.
Yeah. We click ‘Close,’ and we can now go to the sheets. This is an overview, but you can also check more information here. So, all of the Data Alert Distribution…
There's a lot of data here. This is great.
Yeah.
So, if anybody was looking for some more information, what are some resources that they could use?
So, yeah. If you wish to find more information, you can go to Help.Qlik.com, and just look for Qlik Alerting product. We also have a guide here. So, you select - be sure that you select your installation here.
Which version.
So, I will select; yeah. I will select May 2021, which is the latest one; and click on Guides. And if I click here, it will just open Qlik Alerting Guide.
Great!
So, if you wish to have more information, you can find it here.
It's nice to know where the documentation is. Okay, well I think it's time for Q and A.Go ahead and submit your questions through the Q&A panel on the left side of your On24 console. Patricia, which question would you like to address first?
Okay. So, we have a question here: it's only Windows authentication Supported, other IDPs like Okta?
No, for the moment Qlik Alerting only Supports Windows authentication.
Okay, and next question.
Yeah. Is it possible to install Qlik Alert into connect to QlikView?
So, no. It's not possible. You can only connect to Qlik Sense on Windows and SaaS as it comes already as a feature, so no need to install anything. But it's not possible to connect to QlikView.
That is definitely a nice advantage of having SaaS; that's already set up already there.
So, do all services need to be in the same server for Qlik Alerting?
Yes. There is no option to separate them. At the moment, only MongoDb and Redis; and from February 2021, Redis is not necessary anymore. So, only those ones.
All right, I see another one. Is there a limit about users that can be imported to Qlik Alerting?
No, there's no limit. The only limit that we have is that we can create groups up to 1000 users. But there's no limit to the number of groups you can have, no.
Okay, next one.
Why there are two different ports to access to Alert portal?
Yeah, because one needs for secure communication which is HTTPS; and the other is plain HTTP protocol. So, you can have one of them closed in your environment; so, that way you can modify the default ports to 443 to HTTPS and 80 HTTP.
Great.
So, can you install Qlik Alerting in Azure?
Yeah. At least for Windows; if you have a virtual machine that is running in Azure, yes. You can install it there.
Okay.
So, we have another one. Is it recommended to reboot Qlik Alerting and Qlik Sense after installing Qlik Alerting?
There is really no need to do so, but in case your Qlik Sense license do not get refreshed in Qlik Sense side, then you might need to reboot Qlik Sense to refresh Alerting attribute. But this is from Qlik Alerting in June 2020.
What version of Qlik Alerting should I be running?
So, I would recommend running in the latest one; or at least, let's say if you are in Qlik Sense February 2021, at least I you should be running Qlik Alerting on the same version of Qlik Sense, or at least one after one or two after. I mean not one below from if you compare to Qlik Sense. And now the latest version of Qlik Alerting is May 2021, which is already available to download.
Okay Patricia, we have time for one last question.
Yeah. So, last one would be: where can we find more custom notifications templates or examples?
So, you can find more examples in in our Help page. So, if you go to Data Alerts, here. And Managing Custom Notification, you can find a lot more complex. You can look for elements. You also have examples of how to embed web events into emails here. Right to Left Language Support; so, you have a bunch of examples here that you can use to customize your Alerts.
That's really great. Well, thank you very much Patricia.
Yeah. Thank you everyone for joining to this Qlik Alerting session. I hope it was useful information for you all, and yeah thank you so much for joining.
Thank you everyone. We hope you enjoyed this session. And thank you to Patricia for presenting. We appreciate getting experts like Patricia to share with us. Here is our legal disclaimer. Thank you once again. Have a great rest of your day.